As you might have heard earlier today, Google made another acquisition — the email search startup reMail. While its topical description may make it seem like an obvious buy, there’s another layer that makes this really interesting. reMail isn’t just any email search startup, it’s a startup working to perfect email search on the iPhone. Or rather, it was.
Here’s the key part of reMail founder Gabor Cselle’s post about the acquisition today: “Google and reMail have decided to discontinue reMail’s iPhone application, and we have removed it from the App Store.” Yep, it looks like this may be another battle in the Apple-Google mobile war.
While you might assume this was a pure talent acquisition, there’s something odd: Cselle has already worked for Google in the past. On Gmail. While I’m sure Google is happy to have him back, I’m betting they’re just as happy to kill off what is hands down one of the best email applications on the iPhone — much better than the iPhone’s native email app.
As an advisor for this year’s Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator startup competition at SXSW this year, I had a chance to take a good look at reMail recently. Not surprisingly, it was chosen as one of the finalists (though I’m sure that will change now). It’s sad that other iPhone users won’t get a chance to check out this app now that Google is killing it. But all’s fair in love and war, I suppose.
And make no mistake, this is war.
[image: Dreamsworks]
Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Google+, the company’s extension into the social space. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing...
ReMail is an email app that downloads all your email to your iPhone and offers a comprehensive email search.
Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple, Inc. in January 2007. Among the key offerings from Apple’s product line are: Pro line laptops (MacBook Pro) and desktops (Mac Pro), consumer line laptops (MacBook Air) and desktops (iMac), servers (Xserve), Apple TV, the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server operating systems, the iPod, the...
Apple’s iPhone was introduced at MacWorld in January 2007 and officially went on sale June 29, 2007, selling 146,000 units within the first weekend of launch. The phone has been hailed as revolutionary with its bundle of advanced mobile web browsing, music and video playback, and touch screen controls. The iPhone is exclusively carried on the networks of both AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. An iPhone can function as a video camera (video recording was not a standard feature...
Gmail, also known as Google Mail, is a free email service provided by Google which has innovative features such as “conversation view” email threads, search-oriented interface, and plenty of free storage (almost 7.7GB). Gmail opened in private beta mode in April 2004 by invitation only. At first, invites were hard to come by and were spotted up for sale on auction sites like eBay. The email service is now open to everyone and is part of Google Apps. ...
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